Constancy
by Frakme
Summary: My first attempt at a Johnlock story, kind of based on a hymn I loved as a child. Vignette. Angst, alcohol abuse, rated for swearing, non graphic sex. John has to rescue his sister again.


**A/N Kind of inspired by a hymn i loved as a child. My first attempt at a Johnlock story. It may well be my last as this isn't my usual fandom!**

**I'm not sure whether it makes any kind of sense.**

* * *

_Seasons come, seasons go,_

_Moonstruck tides will ebb and flow_

_Should I forget my constant one,_

_He draws me back, he brings me home._

_Oh love, my love I hear you far away._

_A distant storm that will refresh the day._

Another case complete, another dash of genius seen, explored, experienced. A scattered web of clues put together like a dot to dot picture. The 'i''s dotted, the 't's crossed. The leaps of logic that Sherlock seemed to make left John standing on the shore of a vast ocean, gazing into the blue grey depths of his eyes.

He could drown in those eyes, that seemed to have a life of their own when there was an equation to be solved, a riddle to be unravelled, a secret to be revealed. Sometimes he wondered what he was doing here, what could he possibly add to this man who seem to exist on a different plane of existence from everyone else.

John knew, though. Sherlock, who only had a tenuous connection to the Earth, needed grounding, his spark needed a safe channel, a lightning rod, to travel along less the resulting static blew him apart.

He knew from hints given to him by Mycroft and Sherlock himself that the great consulting detective had several times come close to imploding, overwhelmed by stimulus in a world that moved at a pace that was dissonant with his own speed of thought.

He watched as his lover sat cross legged on the couch, bent over John's laptop; his own he'd forgotten to charge, despite repeated reminders from John. In a fit of temper, Sherlock had thrust the flat laptop at him, before storming into the kitchen and snatching up John's.

John had counted to ten then after a twenty minute search found the correct charger in a box that contained twenty varieties of preserved butterfly chrysalises. Sherlock had obtained them a while ago, for an experiment he'd long forgotten about.

John's 'phone rang, he'd left it next to the sofa and Sherlock snatched it up to see who was calling.

"Your sister," he said. "You'll need to collect her from Edmonton police station."

John took the 'phone and answered it. It was indeed Harry; she'd gotten herself into a spot of bother at a pub, had been charged with being drunk and disorderly. The custody sergeant was only willing to release her into the custody of a responsible person. Who more so than her brother, the ex-army doctor?

"I won't be long," John said as he kissed the top of Sherlock's head, and got his coat and wallet. He didn't stop to wonder how Sherlock knew which police station Harry was at, despite the fact she lived on the South Bank. No doubt he deduced she'd taken up with that guitar player again, the one John had disliked on sight when Harry had brought him around, both of them shitfaced, two weeks ago. Or, he'd simply recognised the telephone number.

He hailed a taxi and scowled to himself, ignoring the cabby's attempts at conversation. Sometimes he felt as though he was being pulled from both ends, by Sherlock who was the epitome of the phrase 'high maintenance' and his sister, who seemed unable to function without resorting to drink. He'd tried to get her onto various rehab programs and she'd bailed out of all of them. Yet, as his only remaining family member, he couldn't bring himself to turn his back on her.

He arrived at the police station, spoke to the sergeant, signed interminable bits of paper and then a rather sorry looking woman was presented for him to take home. He guided her outside and found another taxi, all but manhandling Harry inside.

"Wasn't my fault," Harry sulked as the taxi pulled away. "That fucking bitch had it coming to her."

John didn't answer, simply watched the lighted streets speed past. He tuned out Harry's babbling about 'that fucking bitch' and her 'cock sucking boyfriend' - "Oh sorry, John, I know you love a bit of cock these days. How is Sherlock's cock?" She then started laughing uncontrollably and John curled his fists as he fought the urge to punch her. When they arrived and he paid the driver, he wasn't gentle as he pushed her out onto the pavement and took her up to her flat. He'd been given her handbag with her keys and purse, so could let them in. He dumped her unceremoniously onto the sofa and after a quick search found one clean glass to fill with water.

"Drink it," he said.

She flung out an arm and knocked it from his hand, the glass shattering, scattering, over the stained carpet.

"Harry," he said. "Harriet!"

She looked at him, a look of utter stupidity that made him want to slap her. _My sister, my cross to bear. Sherlock once said he liked my shoulders, that they were very strong. Burdens do that to you._

He cleaned up the broken glass, disposed of it in the bin. He found a mug and washed it, filled it with water. This one he made her drink.

He didn't want to stay in this dirty, smelly flat, that stank of piss and vomit and fuck knows what else. Even as he had inured himself to such smells as his profession demanded, in the right circumstances they could sicken him. The smell of decay, squalor, of a life wasted with drink.

She added to the smell just then, as he just managed to dodge her vomiting all over the floor. Calling on his clinical detachment, trying to immerse himself in the illusion that it was just a Saturday night triage, he cleaned it up, cleaned her up, checked her over and got her to bed.

He left her to it, went out on to the now damp streets, a dull drizzle having started. He checked his wallet, not enough to get a taxi but he at least had credit on his Oyster card so he walked to the nearest tube station. Nearly an hour later, he was walking through the door of 221B Baker street, damp and bone weary.

He trudged up the stairs into the flat, dumped his coat, wallet and 'phone. He drank in the smells of the flat; mildew, turpentine, vinegar, bitter almonds and lavender. Unsurprisingly, Sherlock hadn't moved position, barely acknowledging his arrival. John went to the kitchen, put the kettle on and found a couple of clean mugs.

He made the tea quietly, breathing in its scent, trying to remove the memory of the smell of his sister's bile and vomit, the memory of her mocking. She'd sneered at him when he first told her about how he and Sherlock had gotten together.

"You're just another experiment to him," she'd said. "What's it like, fucking a freak?" He hadn't spoken to her for a month after that row. Then he'd had to recover her again, this time from her local walk-in centre after being stitched up.

After placing the mugs on the side table, he knelt down on the floor next to Sherlock and very deliberately took the laptop away from the hands dashing across the keyboard. He placed it carefully on the floor, noting with relief that his lover hadn't closed the tab on which he'd half written his latest blog entry.

"I thought you would stay with her," said the detective. "Shouldn't you have? What if she passes out in her own vomit, asphyxiates herself?"

"She'd probably be doing me a favour," John bit out, then overcome with remorse, he grabbed Sherlock's hand convulsively. "Fuck, I should've, I know the dangers of alcohol poisoning, I'm a _doctor_, for Christ's sake!"

"'First do no harm,'" said Sherlock. "But who heals the healer? Who stitches the wounds in the doctor's heart?"

"I never thought I was a bad person," said John, reflectively. "I've always tried to be a good son, a good brother, friend, doctor, soldier. I've held the hands of the dying, listened to the screams of the wounded, counselled the grief stricken. They gave me a fucking medal, did you know that? And yet I can't find a single bloody bit of compassion for my own flesh and blood!"

Quietly, Sherlock brought the good doctor's head onto his chest, running fingers through sandy hair.

"You're not a miracle worker, John. You're not Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead."

"She's not dead," cried John, wrenching himself away. "Why the fuck would you say that?"

"Because you think to yourself that things would be better if she were dead. Then you wallow in guilt because you hate that you think that way."

The world came to a crashing halt. This man, who sometimes John thought wasn't even human given his obtuseness towards basic human emotion, had had another one of his flashes of insight into the human condition that completely blind-sided him. It was as if some blond bimbo had walked off the Big Brother set and started performing neurosurgery.

He sat back on the floor, arms resting loosely on his knees.

"That's it, yeah," he agreed quietly. "Do you think I should go back?"

"No," Sherlock said. "Stay here with me." He got off the sofa and pulled John up, leading him to the bedroom. They undressed and got into the bed. They lay quietly, listening to each other's breath, the sounds of the street outside. London was never a quiet place.

As he reached for his lover, wanting to lose himself in the long limbs, the dark curls, the ivory skin he considered that as much as he had helped keep Sherlock grounded, perhaps it was a two way process. If he hadn't seen him that day at Bart's, hadn't moved in with him, hadn't fallen in love with this mad genius, maybe he'd be lying in that squalid flat, drinking himself to death alongside Harry. Maybe by now both of them would be six feet under, run down on the North Circular, fallen off the Millenium bridge, drowned in their own vomit.

Peace descended over him as they came together, their cries of ecstasy twisting around the room. As they came down from their oxytocin high, John felt refreshed as if there had been a clearing of the air. As Sherlock wrapped himself around John's stocky frame, the doctor thought that no matter what kind of fuckery life had to throw at him, as long as he had _this_ with _this man_ who had pulled him into his crazy life, then everything would come up smelling like roses.

* * *

The next day Harry left him a five minute tirade on his voicemail after he hung up on her. The jist of which was that she was perfectly fine and she would have to go back to the police station to receive her caution.

Sherlock was frantically texting on his 'phone and he had that _look_ that said he had a case. He took a deep breath, feeling that everything was now alright with the world.


End file.
